Category: Everything else

Loss

A friend passed away yesterday. I didn’t know him anywhere as well as I wish I had but I did know he was an incredibly nice person. The little bit of overlap we had was actually thanks to this blog. We met a few months back because he stopped me and spoke of a recent post. We had a few other chance meetings but nothing substantial. I knew him well enough to wish him a happy birthday a few weeks back. He responded with a note that said – “When I grow up, I want to be like the editor of ALearningaDay.” I laughed.

I think we might have passed each other a couple of times after that and I remember thinking I should sit down with him for a conversation sometime. That didn’t quite happen..

I looked back at that note from him yesterday.

I’ve learnt that there are broadly 3 kinds of reactions after we hear of an untimely loss that happens in close proximity. When you take away those who don’t know the person at all, you are left with those who were close and those who were acquaintances. When you are really close, the loss leaves an indelible mark on your life forever. Things are never the same again. If you’ve got a strong culture within the family, there is a chance you might experience normalcy. But, given we spend most of our lives running away from the idea, most near and dear ones find it incredibly hard. And, when you know of the person as an acquaintance (me in this case), it serves as a strong reminder that we’re not here forever.

I felt myself walking about in a bit of a daze all of yesterday. It made me think of nothing and then many things all at once. Having experienced untimely loss close twice, I feel I understand the pain of near and dear ones and it always seems to make me stop, reflect and take stock.

And, yesterday, I felt the following thoughts repeatedly pass my mind –

1. We must be excellent to ourselves. If we are fortunate to be blessed with good health, we must do everything in our power to keep it that way. It is a privilege to be healthy. It is up to us to use it well.

2. We must be excellent to others – especially those who are dearest to us. For there are few other things that matter. We’re here for a short time and it is all about who we touch. And, for those close to us, let’s not wait till tomorrow to share a hug.

3. We must work to make this world a bit better. When we think about it, the time we spend with our near and dear ones is actually a minor proportion when compared to the time we spend at work. Yes, this is not always possible. Yes, we need money. But, where possible, when possible, let’s seek out opportunities to touch others and make this world a bit better. A lot of what makes the world today is unfair. This is about not letting the unfairness getting us down but working towards building a better future.

I don’t think such moments are about deciding to live every day as if it were your last. Life isn’t about absolutes and I find such thinking naive. I do think it is a constant balancing act. And, there definitely exists a balance between working towards a better future while doling out hugs, kisses and love generously.

Be nice. Be kind. The world will roll on without you. All we have is a limited amount of time to make a small difference where we can and when we can. Let’s make it meaningful, make it count.

We lost a wonderful member of our ALearningaDay community yesterday. He will be missed.

The view

We spend most of our time climbing ladders – a career ladder, a fitness ladder, a finance ladder, etc. There is no end to these ladders. There is always hard and gritty work to be done for long term good. And, that involves diligent work. There are 3 truths about ladder climbing that I’ve found helpful –

1. There is no happiness ladder. While it is true that postponing short term gratification results in long term joy, viewing life as an exercise in postponing short term gratification is a drag. The challenge with happiness is that we have to live it through the journey.

2. There were likely times when you almost slipped but were held tightly by people who stopped climbing their ladders to help you. These folk are precious. Treasure them and try to climb alongside them for as long as possible. And, even when you aren’t alongside, stay in touch. The art of ladder climbing hasn’t changed much with time and there’s a lot you can learn from experience.

3. Wherever you are, you can always stop, take a few seconds, and enjoy the view. Sure, the view gets better at the top. But, the place you are in now is the place you are at after putting all of your life experience at work. It is likely the highest you’ve ever been and is likely the efforts of you having come a long way. Take the time to enjoy the view and be grateful for having made it so far – you definitely didn’t do it alone.

That takes us right back to point 1. It isn’t happy people who are thankful, but thankful people who are happy.

The success measure

Ever since my frustration with a day of 100% activity, 0% productivity 2 weeks ago, I’ve been starting the day with a small addition to my day’s to do list. I call it the “success measure” box and add 2-3 items whose completion would mark a successful day.

Success measure

This little box has changed everything. It helps that I do this first thing in the morning as I start the day with a clear understanding of what success looks like. I have just one rule – there can’t be more than 3 items in the box. As a result of this –

1. I can almost feel a bit of stress when I find myself mucking around with items outside the success measure box. That’s great as it clearly distinguishes activity from productivity.
2. I do everything possible to be efficient through the rest of my meetings and non-essential tasks so I can carve out blocks to complete these.
3. It helps with the idea of “focus as a verb.” Focus as a noun is being able to buckle down and get work done. Focus as a verb is a trait I consider more essential. It means being able to go through life with a clear idea of what is important at a given point of time.

Finally, it is my belief that we are happiest when we’re making progress towards our goals. And, the joy from ticking off the success measure items at the end of the day is one that makes the challenge worth it.

PS: And, of course I fail from time to time. But, the big difference is that the reasons and learnings are very clear, e.g, I typically realize I just have to do a better job scheduling everything else / building in enough slack time the next day.

Your dark side

The Hogan assessment company has an interesting video up on “The Science of Personality.” In this 37 minute film, they take us through the evolution in the study of personality with a focus on the developments in the last 100 years. While I was hoping for a bit more explanation around some of the modern developments, the movie has a few interesting nuggets.

It explains that there are 3 forces that guide human behavior –
1. The need to get along
2. The need to achieve within the group
3. The need for a purpose or frame with which to make sense of the world.

And, most of human life is a tension between the need to get along and the need to achieve. It also spoke about how effective leadership is the key resource that makes teams perform. And, how ineffective leadership, on the other hand, can destroy all sorts of progress. But, of course, personality drives leadership, which, in turn, drives organizations. And, that means personality is really powerful.

If I had to sum up the video’s takeaway it would be – “Learn more about your personality and be self aware.” I think that’s great advice. They touched on the idea of understanding both our bright and dark sides – our dark side comprises of behaviors we are either prone to during times of stress or when we tend to over use our strengths.

I think of the dark side as a manifestation of our insecurities. For instance, when I feel especially insecure, I seem to either respond with an ego that tries to act as a shield or find myself prone to envy. And, when I overuse my strengths, it often means coming across too forceful.

I’ve learnt to accept that my dark side will never go away. There are certain psychological triggers that bring them to the fore. I’ve attempted to design my life in ways to avoid these unnecessary triggers. For instance, given I am fairly attention deficit, I take many breaks during the day. But, I’ve avoided the Facebook feed for 2 years now. I use Facebook to share links, stay in touch and also participate in groups. But, the feed is a rabbit hole I’ve learnt to avoid. During a bad day, it is a perfect example of an envy generator. And, I’m better off focusing on everything I need to do. Similarly, when I feel insecure, I’ve learnt to recognize the sudden feelings of arrogance that it brings or a certain unnecessary forcefulness. I don’t think I succeed in avoiding them all the time (it results in a follow up apology or note to whoever was on the other side sometimes) but I realize that awareness is the first step towards acceptance and action.

Our dark sides are a part of who we are. Understanding and accepting that is the first step to being genuine.

Re-framing no

We often face great difficulty saying no to new opportunities. This is typically due to one of 2 reasons –
1. These opportunities offer clearer short term rewards – e.g., a bit of extra money or instant gratification
2. We don’t like saying no – we prefer to be liked vs. attempting to be respected for our choices

There is a link between the two reasons because if the rewards of saying no are blindingly obvious, it is hard to not say no. It is when the rewards are fuzzy that it becomes harder to make the like-respect trade-off. The problem with this is that we often neglect the most important things in favor of short-term wins. Clayton Christensen often talked about how it takes parents nearly two decades to see the results of the time invested in their kids. I think that is the case for most great relationships. They take consistent investments for a long period of time. They degrade similarly as well. We don’t see it coming.. until it does.

An idea that could help make it easier to say no would be to re-frame it and think about what you are saying yes to. By saying no to answering email in the evening, we would be saying yes to quality time with our loved ones, for example. By saying no to that extra project, we’d be saying yes to sleep, exercise, and better personal health. By doing this, we pay attention to the real trade-offs.

And, where there is awareness of trade-offs, there is likely a good decision that is being made.

The only question – Jiro Ono and Rene Redzepi

Rene Redzepi, the chef and founder of Noma – the restaurant that has been consistently ranked the best restaurant in the world, conversed with Jiro Ono at Ono’s legendary sushi restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro. I am a huge fan of the movie on Ono – Jiro Dreams of Sushi. So, I enjoyed every minute of the short 12 minute summary video.

My favorite part of the conversation was (paraphrased) –

“How long did it take for you to feel like you became a master?”
“Till when I was 50 years old.” 
“Between when you started as a teenager to when you were 50, did you every think of quitting?” 
“No. The only question I asked was – how can I get better?”

Powerful. Thank you, Rene and Jiro-san. And, hat tip to Matt Mullenweg for sharing this.

The behavior you expect

(Before I begin, I apologize to all of you who read this on RSS for going MIA on you over the past 4 days. The RSS feed was broken and I didn’t notice there was an issue. I got that fixed this morning so you should receive 4 days worth of posts today. It is an annoying problem that I run into every months – the encoding system seems to take issue with the occasional apostrophe / single quote as it is interpreted as code and that, in turn, ends up breaking down the system. Thanks to those of you who let me know. Apologies for the trouble.)

A team I am a part of organized a meeting yesterday for our “extended” project team. I was planning to sit in the back and get some work done. But, I noticed the attendees were joining me in the back instead of sitting near the presenter (also a team mate) right up front. So, the presenter asked asked everyone to move forward. I urged them to do so, too.

To that, one of them just said – “I’m just following your example.”

I realized I was the problem, not them. So, I moved ahead, shut my laptop down and got ready to engage. Things got much better.

One of the funny / difficult things about leadership is that we often forget that our behavior is always noticed. That’s just the nature of the job.

And, it is a reminder that the most powerful way for us to lead the way is to simply role model the behavior we expect.

The simple things

I am listening to “Wonderwall” by Oasis as I’m typing these words out. This was among the first songs I fell in love with and has so many great memories attached to it as it has stayed on every music playlist I’ve had since my early teens.

It is 8:07am on Wednesday – I am looking ahead at a packed day with a new project commencing, a project wrapping up, two assignment meetings and a couple of other notes. It is going to be back-to-back and I’m looking forward to that.

It is at such moments that I realize that it is in these moments that we actually live our lives. Too often, we think of the weekend / the next big break as our only respite. But, this moment is where we live have our day-to-day struggles and challenges. And, it is such moments that add up to a life where we’ve hopefully explored the length and breadth of the road we traveled.

Sure, it isn’t perfect and there are a few things that would be nice if fixed. But, I’m thankful for this moment. It is said that it isn’t happy people who are thankful but it is thankful people who are happy. I believe that. Remembering to give thanks takes work..

But, in the final analysis, I can think of very few other things that will matter as much as being grateful for all we’re blessed with and savoring the simple things that make up the bulk of our experience. Let’s live today.

Understanding the theory of constraints.

The theory of constraints views any system as being limited by a small number of constraints. This is easiest to imagine in a manufacturing process – there is typically one machine that limits the production capacity of the plant.

It is no different in our lives. 24 hours, for example, is a constraint that limits us. In fact, the smarter way to think about it might be to view 12 hours as the real constraint. It is hard to sustain 12 hour days over a lifetime even if you might work harder than that for certain periods. And, even then, we’re discussing quantity of work and not quality. So, a really smart way to think about it might be to think in terms of the 3-5 hours of productive time we have in a day. On the one hand, it can be less of a constraint if you can drive that number up. On the other, it is important that we begin by just being aware of that limiting constraint.

Once you understand your constraints, the theory of constraints recommends that you design your system around that constraint. So, in our daily lives, that would mean ensuring we free up bandwidth to ensure we get the most out of the productive hours. It would also mean we sleep well, eat healthy and exercise regularly so we’re consistently pushing up the quality of our thinking during those productive hours.

Understand constraints is critical to understanding reality. And, understanding reality is critical to doing great work.